


It Ain't as Bad as it Sounds (Someday I'll Explain it to You)

by somnifero



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Gang Behavior, Dennis is trans not a whole lot changes, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Disordered Eating, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Rich Gay Mac, Self-Harm, Transphobia, canon-typical bigotry, set around age 8 up through season 12, trans dennis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:48:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23308639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somnifero/pseuds/somnifero
Summary: “Does that make you gay?” asks Dirtgrub. His voice isn’t malicious; it’s curious, like a five-year-old pointing at a man with tattoos on the street. It’s not a cute look like five-year-olds, and it’s even less cute on Dirtgrub. “Since you’re sleeping with Maureen Ponderosa?”“Charlie,” says Ronnie the Rat. “He’s a dude. He’s sleeping with a chick. That’s straight, so he’s all in the clear.”“Oh. Cool.” Dirtgrub thinks this over. “Okay.”Something in Dennis’s chest warms a little. It’s not that people don’t talk— he knows they do. Just not to his face. Dennis is rich and privileged and clever and cutthroat and cool, but he knows they talk when he’s not listening. Ronnie talks like he’s forgotten Dennis is there, like Dennis doesn’t mean shit to him— which he doesn’t, Dennis has good money but Ronnie has a monopoly— and Dirtgrub nods and takes it all in stride.
Relationships: Charlie Kelly & Mac McDonald & Dee Reynolds & Dennis Reynolds & Frank Reynolds, Dee Reynolds & Dennis Reynolds, Mac McDonald & Dennis Reynolds, Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 11
Kudos: 67





	It Ain't as Bad as it Sounds (Someday I'll Explain it to You)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys I may or may not have a multi-chapter fic going on right not but I wrote this tonight cause I needed to get it off my chest. 
> 
> HEAVY transphobia (Dennis) and homophobia (Mac) both internal and external. Self harm is brief and not graphic. Disordered eating is very briefly mentioned/referenced. 
> 
> These issues are very personal to me so I have tried to handle them with as much grace as possible. If anyone feels like I should add extra warnings/tags let me know. Stay safe out there folks. <3

Dennis prefers ninjas to princesses. Dennis prefers Star Wars and Ninja Turtles and Batman. Batman is, of course, better than all of the other superheroes because Batman has a butler with a British accent and a mustache. And besides, Batman’s parents are dead and he lives in a mansion all by himself. Batman seems better off for it, but Dennis sometimes thinks he’d be better off without his parents, in as pragmatic of a way as his eight-year-old brain can muster. 

Of course, he’d still have Dee… 

Dee prefers princesses. Dee hates Star Wars, except for Princess Leia, and she thinks superheros are stupid. Dee wants to wear sequins and walk in pageants she’ll never win. Dennis has never bothered to enter, though he’s the prettier twin, and Dee can’t even argue with that because Mom says so and she always has the final say. 

Dennis wears t-shirts and sweat-shorts. Dennis cuts his hair and makes faces at himself in the mirror and smears foundation on his face when his family isn’t looking to make his cheekbones more prominent and his face more gaunt. Dennis’s real name isn’t Dennis, not on his birth certificate, but it’s close enough and the feminine version is much less appealing. 

Dennis doesn’t like princesses; Dee does.

He doesn’t know why he feels like the one playing dress-up.

***

Dennis enters high school with an ego the size of last week’s hangover. Dennis enters high school in jeans with short hair and carefully baggy polo shirts. Dennis enters high school and somehow Denise slips away, forgotten. The Aluminum Monster is easier to jeer at, anyway, and Dennis is scarier than his hopeless sister. Somehow, he’s the cool twin, the  _ normal  _ twin. The twin who goes to ragers and drinks half his body weight in hard liquor for breakfast and smokes weed and cigarettes under the bleacher before classes. The twin with a glare so sharp anyone who mentions Denise ends up with scratches on their face and an apology on their lips, if only to keep it from happening again. 

The twin who sleeps with Maureen Ponderosa, who is so goddamn bizarre that he can’t stand having a conversation with her but she doesn’t make comments, like some of the other girls. Dennis is eighteen and he  _ looks  _ like he should, thanks to the army of doctors who made Denise go away forever. 

Mom always wanted a boy anyway. Dad didn’t give a shit. Dee wanted a nose job, but all she got was a shitty tin of highlighter in her Christmas stocking. 

The wide-eyed drug dealer glances at him from the corner of his eye as he hands over a bag of weed. It’s overpriced, but Dennis has the cash to burn and the little snitch has eliminated all his competition anyway. 

Ronnie the Rat doesn’t bother to count the cash. Dennis should have skimped him. 

His nervous friend hovers over his shoulder. “Is it true?” he blurts out. 

Dennis narrows his eyes. “Is what true?”

“That you’re— I mean that you used to be— ” Dirtgrub makes a gesture in front of his chest like he’s mimicking breasts. 

Dennis shoves down the way bile rises in his throat. “The fuck is it to you?” he snaps. “I shower in the boy’s locker room— everyone’s seen what I look like.”

“Does that make you gay?” asks Dirtgrub. His voice isn’t malicious; it’s curious, like a five-year-old pointing at a man with tattoos on the street. It’s not a cute look like five-year-olds, and it’s even less cute on Dirtgrub. “Since you’re sleeping with Maureen Ponderosa?”

“Charlie,” says Ronnie the Rat. “He’s a dude. He’s sleeping with a chick. That’s straight, so he’s all in the clear.”

“Oh. Cool.” Dirtgrub thinks this over. “Okay.”

Something in Dennis’s chest warms a little. It’s not that people  _ don’t  _ talk— he knows they do. Just not to his face. Dennis is rich and privileged and clever and cutthroat and  _ cool,  _ but he knows they talk when he’s not listening. Ronnie talks like he’s forgotten Dennis is there, like Dennis doesn’t mean shit to him— which he doesn’t, Dennis has good money but Ronnie has a monopoly— and Dirtgrub nods and takes it all in stride. 

“Is everything cleared up to your satisfaction?” Dennis asks icily. 

“Yeah,’ says Ronnie. “Sorry about that. Here.” He pulls a blunt out of his fake leather jacket and passes it to Dennis. “Take this. On the house.” Like he’s a legitimate business instead of a half-stupid narc. He lowers his voice. “Charlie’s an idiot, but he means well.”

“I’m right here, dude!” Dirtgrub’s— Charlie’s— voice is high pitched.

“I’m Mac, by the way,” says the guy. Damn, he’s an idiot with a twenty-five-dollar leather jacket and too much gel in his hair, but he’s got a nice smile. “That’s Charlie.”

“Dennis,” says Dennis. He holds the blunt in his fingers. “Have a light?”

***

“Oh, man, this place is gonna be great,” says Mac. He leans back against the bar, surveying the place and sipping a beer. “Too bad your sister jumped in on it.”

“We can just make her do the dirty work for a few months,” says Dennis. “She’ll get bored and run off to a death cult in Nebraska with a hippie soon, don’t worry.”

“But I get basement duty,” says Charlie. It’s in his contract. 

It’s part of why they got the bar— apart from it being dirt cheap due to some kind of legal trouble’s on the owner’s part that made him sell off all his property for pennies. Something about a blood feud. It’s a nice spot, it’s already got the bar setup, it’s cheap, and Charlie declared that the basement was excellent. 

Dennis doesn’t know what Charlie’s criteria for basements are— it seemed large enough and spider-free enough to him— but he likes the basement. So it’s all settled. 

“Of course, pal,” says Dennis. He’s happy Charlie’s happy. They clink their glasses together, he and Mac with their arms thrown across the bar and Charlie in the middle. They drink. 

Mac meets Dennis’s eyes over Charlie, raises his eyebrows.  _ Can you believe this, bro? _

Dennis allows himself a smile. He can’t.

Mac starts dating Carmen. 

The others have a word for her that Mac uses because he’s oblivious and Dee uses because she’s spiteful and Frank uses because he’s from the goddamn 60s so it means nothing to him and Charlie uses because he’s a toddler repeating what the rest of them say and Dennis uses because it makes him feel the same. 

“Gross!” Dee yells. 

“She tapes it back!” Mac protests. 

Dennis stirs his drink, feeling stupidly jealous of Carmen. Not for the Mac thing, but because of the— well, because of the whole plumbing issue. It’s completely irrational; Carmen is just unhappy with her body as he is. Was. Was. He’s moved past it. Everyone’s forgotten those few hazy years of Dennis’s life, so when they talk about Carmen they talk like no one is listening. 

Dennis is listening. Dennis hears the open disgust in their voices. Dennis goes into the bathroom that night and scrubs at his skin in the shower until it splits open. Dennis has spent three decades in this body and it still doesn’t feel like his own. 

***

Dennis hates Mac. Mac is a coward. He lurks in the shadows and it wouldn’t be so annoying if they didn’t use the same laptop for— uh, recreational activities— and if Mac even bothered to erase his  _ goddamn search history.  _ Even a thirteen-year-old knows what incognito mode is. Dennis follows his breadcrumbs, watches twinks order pizza and bears dress up as plumbers and otters do god-knows-what. 

Dennis isn’t one for LGBT solidarity— it’s not that he doesn’t care, it’s just not something he likes to think about. Dennis goes to the gym and works out and starves himself so his body can feel his own and it still isn’t there. Dennis takes showers in the dark and puts his hidden camera at a weird angle so you can just see his back, the genitalia from a distance that looks perfectly normal.  _ Normal. _ Not his chest. Not his front. 

“You can’t be fucking honest with yourself, can you?” Dennis yells at him one night, their faces inches apart. He doesn’t even know how the argument started; they were discussing movie choices. It ended up like this, always ends up like this these days. Dennis is a jack-in-the-box and Mac winds him up, helplessly. Doesn’t even know he’s doing it. 

“I’m plenty honest with myself, dude!” Mac yells back. His voice is strained, the veins in his biceps standing out. He’s tense, a live wire ready to blacken anything he touches.

“You disgust me,” Dennis snarls. “Why can’t you just be honest? Why do you keep lying to me like I’m an idiot?”

Mac swipes at his face angrily. Stands up. “Why the hell do you care?”   
“Because we’re best friends!” Dennis is drunk. Dennis will not mention this in the morning, he’ll just look at Mac in disgust and contempt like usual. “We’re fucking  _ blood brothers,  _ man, why can’t you just be honest with me? Why can’t you fucking talk to me?”

“I— “ Mac is halfway to his door. His shoulders are slumped. “I can’t. Not now.”

Mac— Mac irks him.  _ Irks.  _ His cowardice. His fear. His insecurity. Dennis looks at Mac and scratches him, yells at him, and when Mac looks at his eyes, those stupid, warm eyes it’s not the brown that he hates but the blue reflected in them. 

***

Mac comes out. 

Mac comes out and Dennis is happy for him, he really is, if it means they can just move on. Mac has come out before and gone back countless times. Really, for all the time he spends popping in an out of the closet he should have been fashion sense by now. 

Mac comes out and Dennis takes him to dinner at Giguino’s, and Mac pays and Dennis doesn’t mention the cost of the arbitration because it’s nice to see Mac happy, glowing. Paying for the meal because it’s  _ his  _ celebration, even though Dennis is the one who suggested dinner.

“Home?” asks Mac when they’re in the car. 

“I thought you’d be halfway to the Rainbow by now, celebrating your newfound homosexuality.”   
Mac rolls his eyes. “It’s not  _ new.”  _ He acts like he hasn’t been the one smacking any rumors of his gayness like he’s playing whack-a-mole for over three decades. “I just wanna go home.”

Mac kisses him when they’re inside. Kisses him long and slow like Dennis is something precious, cradling his face in his hands like he might bread. Kisses him as soon as the door is locked like he can’t wait, like he’s a man starving for it. Kisses him and whispers things against his mouth that have Dennis blushing.

“I love you,” Mac says with one arm thrown over Dennis’s waist. He blinks. “You don’t have to say it back.”

Dennis kisses him. Dennis believes him. Dennis is an idiot.

They sleep together— not like that, but in Dennis’s bed, like they’re kids again. But they’re not kids, and Dennis is happy and a little wine-drunk and warm because he’s not thinking. He’s not thinking at all.

The morning is harder to shake. 

Some people like mornings. Say they’re soft and new or some shit. Dennis doesn’t. Morning means more haggard lines on his face and his hair sticking up weird, more light to see himself and all his flaws. 

It means more light to see what Mac is doing. To realize that Mac isn’t moving on. Mac is moving back. Dennis is Carmen 2.0. 

Mac comes out of the closet. Mac goes back into the closet, with more gusto and denial than before. Mac goes back into the closet with another distraction like Dusty or some other shit. Mac goes back into the closet and he’ll blunder on about God for awhile and he’ll forget how much that strikes Dennis in the ribs. Mac goes back into the closet, and Dennis feels stupid for having thought better of him. 

Mac is sleeping. Mac will sleep until noon at least because he’s a heathen with no disciplined habits and because he always sleeps like that when he’s gotten drunk on wine. His face is beautiful and soft. 

Dennis hates it. He goes to Dee’s. He doesn’t leave a note. 

“You look like shit.”

Dee looks like shit too, even shittier shit than Dennis, but he doesn’t mention it. He pushes inside. 

“What’s this about? It’s eight in the goddamn morning, Dennis. I was sleeping.”

“Seven is a perfectly reasonable hour to wake up and maybe if you weren’t so lazy you wouldn’t be alone right now.”

“You’re just as single as I am, Dennis.” Dee folds her arms. 

Dennis grabs his arm and squeezes. Hard. He doesn’t do this in front of people. Not so obviously, not where they can see. He’ll pinch his hips under the bar, dig crescents into his palms and forearms. 

“Dennis.” Dee grabs his arms. 

Dee used to do this when Dennis was younger, when he wanted to tear his body apart because someone mutilating it would make it more his own.They don’t talk about this part of their relationship. They don’t talk about how Dennis used to steal Dee’s stupid diet pills that made her puke five times a day or how he would shove bags of junk food in her backpack when she wasn’t looking. Dee might have assumed it was their mother if their mother wasn’t a selfish piece of shit who would have told Dee she was looking fat anyway.   
“Mac kissed me.”   
Dee rolls her eyes. “Of course he did.”

“He’s using me.”

Dee frowns. “What do you mean?”   
“I mean he’s— he’s  _ using  _ me, Dee, can’t you— ”

The door crashes open. “Dee, have you seen—” Mac bellows. His eyes snag on Dennis. “What the  _ fuck _ , dude?”

“Dee, you don’t lock your door?” asks Dennis, his tone switching to sneering more out of self defense than contempt. 

“You woke me up!” Dee screeches. 

“You  _ left,  _ Dennis, I thought you were dead! I thought you were kidnapped!”

“Out of my own bed, dude, really?” asks Dennis. “I’m forty years old, man. I don’t have a curfew anymore.”

“That wasn’t cool, Dennis.” Mac’s voice is low. It’s angry, Dennis realizes, and not in his usual, blustering way. Mac is furious. 

Dennis is silent. He sets his mouth and stares at Mac like he’s a stranger. Or he tries. 

“I have zumba!” Dee bursts out.

They stare at her.

“Yeah, Artemis and I— it’s a good workout— uh, yeah. I’ll be back in an hour. Or two. Or three.” Dee practically runs out of the apartment. She’s still wearing her pajama bottoms.

“She’s really leaning into the whole old lady thing, isn’t she?” asks Dennis.

Mac grins despite himself. “Look.” His voice is soft. He sits on the sofa next to Dennis, carefully telegraphing his movements, practically hugging the arm so they’re as far apart as possible. “I didn’t mean to, like, come on to you so hard. If you felt like you couldn’t say no or like you had to because I had just come out and— ”

Dennis laughs sharply. “Mac, you didn’t force me into anything. The  _ idea  _ that you could force me into anything is ridiculous.” His heart feels like it’s breaking but Dennis has his goddamn pride. 

Mac’s brow furrows. “You  _ left,  _ Dennis. I thought— I thought you hated me.” He stares at his hands. “I guess you still hate me.”

“Oh, give it a rest.” Dennis’s voice is sharp.

Mac looks at his lap. “Okay.”   
“Just like that? You kissed me, told me you loved me, and then you’re just going to drop it?”

“I don’t know what you want me to do, dude!” Mac bursts out. “I do love you. I’ve told you that. You wanted me last night— or I thought you did— and now you don’t. There’s nothing I can do.”

“You don’t want me.”

“Of  _ course  _ I want you!” Mac’s voice is annoyed, high pitched. “I love you, dude! Like, love-you-love-you. Is that what this is about. You think I’m lying?”

“Stop it!” Dennis yells. “It’s not going to happen. It’s never going to happen. You can’t use me like that, Mac.”

“I’m not trying to use you— Dennis, I  _ love  _ you, goddamnit!” Mac looks like he’s close to tearing his hair out. 

“Sure, buddy,” says Dennis. The words burn on his tongue. He wants to say yes, but he knows that he’s a tower of salt and Mac is the ocean and Mac will consume him and spit him out on some sunny, barren place to dry out in agony. He jabs a finger into Mac’s chest. “Lie to me all you want, but you sure as hell aren’t using me as an excuse to go back in the closet.”

Mac blinks. His anger is gone. He just looks confused. 

“Dennis, why the hell would I be using you to go back in the closet?”

“Do you want me to spell it out for you?” Dennis demands. “Do you want me to fucking show you my birth certificate? You know why, you little bitch. At least I’ve never lied to myself about what I am, and I sure as hell haven’t used  _ you  _ to do it.”

“Dennis— ”

“You think I’m a girl!” Dennis chokes on a sob. “You think I’m a fucking girl, so you can fuck me and call it okay in your head, say it’s okay to your god! Well it’s not fucking okay to me, pal. You can’t do that to me.”

“Dennis, I don’t— do  _ you  _ think you’re a girl?”

Dennis breaks. He grabs his coat. “I’m sleeping in a hotel, you fucking coward.”

“Dennis, wait!” Mac is behind him and then he’s in front of him, blocking the door. Goddamn, maybe it’s not just glamour muscles after all. The man can move. “I don’t think you’re a girl. You’re my best friend, my goddamn blood  _ brother,  _ dude. Where is this coming from?”   
“You’ve gone back in the closet every other time you’ve come out,” says Dennis. “Why is this any different?”

“Well, first of all, dude, it’s like, written into law now so if I back out now I’m pretty sure I’m going to jail or something.” Mac says it like Dennis is the dumbest person alive for not knowing that a private arbitration is  _ clearly  _ the same thing as criminal court. “And second of all, you’re a guy, Dennis. You’re a guy with a guy face and a guy body and a guy soul. You’re the most badass guy I know, dude.”

Dennis wipes his eyes. When did his cheeks get wet. “If you’re lying— if you’re trying to go back in the closet— ”

“Dennis,” Mac grabs his hands. “I love you. I’m  _ gay.”  _ He grins. 

Dennis looks at him. Dennis is safe. Dennis has always been safe. Dennis hides parts of himself from the world because even if he was the traditional type he’d be too scared to show any underbelly, to let any vulnerability slip out. Dennis has stayed in the same bar with the same friends for decades. Dennis doesn’t talk, not really, not like he should. Not like every therapist he’s ever been forced to see says he should.

Dennis is safe. Dennis has always been safe, has always thrown a seatbelt around himself, has always put on a safety helmet and goggles even if it means the world is strange and muffled and he can’t see the colors of the sky right. 

Dennis is so tired of just being safe. 

Dennis kisses him. Dennis kisses him. Dennis kisses him. 

Mac kisses him back. 

“You thought— you thought I was using you? You thought this was me hiding?” Mac strokes his cheek, presses their foreheads together. “You fucking terrify me, dude.”

Dennis smiles. “And don’t you forget it.”

Mac flicks him. “Not like that. You think you’re scary but you’re just a big teddy ear.”

“Take that back or I’ll never kiss you again.”

Mac doesn’t take it back. He kisses Dennis again, softly, and he knows that Dennis won’t follow through on that threat. 

**Author's Note:**

> I **just** got tumblr I'm [lavender-ashes](https://lavender-ashes.tumblr.com/) I realize that my blog is fugly right now and the only post is a scientific evaluation of Darth Vader's ability to fuck but I'm a pretty cool person I promise. Also bored. Really bored. Like stuck-in-isolation-writing-emotional-fanfic-at-2am-bored. Yell at me!! 
> 
> Edit: I am now whateverthebeeswant on Tumblr. 
> 
> So I wrote this in a little over an hour so the spelling/grammar might be a bit weird in places. Sorry it's 2 in the goddamn AM right now :p
> 
> This was a tough fic emotionally to write. I have tried to be as not-offensive as possible; that said, the internalized homophobia/transphobia is real. If anyone was troubled by this fic I am sorry; as I said above, if you feel I need to add any more tags lmk. Your safety and comfort is always my top priority. Comments are always appreciated. <3
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading! Stay safe in these uncertain times and wash your hands, you filthy animals! <3


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